Galway best as West's big guns prepare for more serious contests

Galway manager John O'Mahony commented on the irony of yesterday's lovely conditions in Fr Gibbons Park, Claremorris. "We've played two Connacht finals in pouring rain and then you get a day like this in January." Brilliant sunshine beamed down on the teams as the 1998 All-Ireland champions avenged last July's Connacht final defeat by Mayo by taking the points in this FBD Connacht League fixture.

Conditions weren't quite perfect as long grass and a heavy pitch made the surface a bit unpredictable for players. Nonetheless both teams delivered an entertaining match with enough gentle encouragement for the respective managers even at this largely uninformative time of the year.

There was some surprise amongst the big crowd of about 3,000 when Galway bulked up their team by calling in three All-Ireland medallists to launch quite a strong challenge in the usually sedentary environment of a secondary competition. Although speculation was that they needed to re-assert themselves against the county which had deposed them in the west, the reason was more practical.

With the Railway Cup taking over the schedules for the next fortnight, there was a chance - if Connacht win next weekend's semi-final against Munster - that O'Mahony mightn't see his best players until the NFL resumes next month. In the circumstances it was decided to field a strong line-up.

Whereas he lamented a number of "basic errors", home manager Pat Holmes wasn't unhappy as he tries to build on the achievements of his predecessor John Maughan. "We lost the game and are very disappointed. We tried out a few new players, some of them did very well, some did adequately. It's a learning process and we're happy enough from that point of view."

Mayo's backs played well overall although Kevin Cahill had his hands full with the excellent Padraig Joyce and at centrefield, Pat Fallon looked as forceful as ever and spearheaded his team's comeback in the second and third quarters of the match.

Yet on the critical matter of Mayo's attack, the jury will remain out for the time being at least. Over the past four years, it has been the county's scoring deficiencies which have prevented an All-Ireland breakthrough. If the final obstacles to that success are to come down, Holmes knows he will need to unearth new forwards.

Now that it would appear last year's experiment of playing Kenneth Mortimer up front has been shelved, there will be interest in seeing what innovation Holmes can bring to the sector. Mortimer's brother Trevor played well at full forward after replacing Stephen Carolan who also had his moments until picking up an injury.

But it was Kevin O'Neill - hardly a new element in Mayo's equation - who was the county's most impressive forward. Demonstrating accuracy from the placed ball as well as from general play, O'Neill finished with 15, including a well-taken penalty two minutes from time which briefly threatened to change the result.

Otherwise, there was little to raise hopes of enhanced attacking potency in the months ahead.

John O'Mahony will have been more pleased with this sector. Having won an All-Ireland on the back of attacking excellence, Galway have no doubts about the raw material - assuming of course Michael Donnellan returns from his soccer sabbatical with the form of two years ago rather than the lack of it evident last summer.

At times, the winners looked excellent going forward. The score which re-established their lead on 45 minutes was built by a pacy break from the back by Declan Meehan (one of the differences between the counties is that Galway have so many forwards they're recycling them as backs rather than vice versa). The ball was carried on by Jarlath Fallon and the point taken by Joe Bergin.

Fallon was by now bringing some order to centrefield after being reined in at centre forward by Noel Connelly. The switch of the Tuam player and Bergin - a Tipperary native whose family moved to Mountbellew - proved very effective and Bergin troubled Connelly greatly in the final quarter.

Galway's top performer was, however, Joyce whose 1-7 included a peach of a goal in the fifth minute. Cahill lost the ball in the sun and Joyce zipped through, registered the advancing Burke and chipped him as the Mayo goalkeeper moved out.

Galway's lead was down to a point by half-time and Mayo grabbed the initiative at the start of the second half to move into a narrow lead. Five unanswered points - including a whopping 60-metre free from John Donnellan - between the 41st and 49th minutes burned off Mayo's challenge although a foul on David Finnerty in the 58th minute gave O'Neill the penalty opportunity which he calmly dispatched to cut the lead to a point, 1-11 to 1-10.

The visitors steadied themselves, however, and survived the countdown, adding a final point from a Joyce free after Bergin had been fouled.

GALWAY: P Lally; T Meehan, G Fahy, K Donnellan; D Meehan, D Mitchell, E Daly; J Bergin (0-1), S O Domhnaill; P Clancy, J Fallon (0-1), K Comer; J Donnellan (0-2, one free), P Joyce (1-7, five points from frees), N Finnegan (0-1, a free). Subs: J Divilly for Mitchell (35 mins); L Colleran for Comer (37 mins).

MAYO: P Burke; A Costello, K Cahill, A Higgins; N Dunne, N Connelly, K Mortimer; P Fallon (0-2), D Heaney; C McManamon, A O'Malley, K O'Neill (1-5, goal from penalty and two points from frees); D Nestor, S Carolan, K Filan (0-2, one free). Subs: T Mortimer (0-1) for Carolan (15 mins); D Higgins for Filan (46 mins); D Finnerty for Heaney (49 mins); B Ruane for Dunne (58 mins).

Referee - M Duffy (Sligo).